Does Cupid know the scientific method?

Seth Weber didn't need to visit the Da Vinci Science Center on Valentine's Day for it to occur to him that there might be some science behind the mysteries of love and romance.

The assistant U.S. Attorney met his wife, Stephanie Olexa, five years ago when she took the stand as an expert witness in an environmental crime prosecution.

"She was cute and she could make science understandable to a third-grader," Weber said. About a year later, he asked her out, there were sparks and the rest is...what, a series of chemical reactions?

Is love and attraction nothing but a heady mix of pheromones and the drive to procreate?

Standing in front of the museum's Our Chemical Romance exhibit on the power of scent Saturday night, Olexa hedged a bit. Perhaps there are some things even the periodic table can't explain.

"As a scientist, of course there is chemistry it's meeting someone special, it's the energy connection," Olexa said, sounding, in the end not so scientific.

The couple was among about 130 people who attended the $85-a-person fundraiser, billed as a Celebration of Love and Science, on Valentine's Day at the Da Vinci Center.

The catered event included dance lessons, the opportunity for couples to mix their own perfume, romantically inspired foods such as raw oysters and, for parents, free baby-sitting, perhaps the most powerful aphrodisiac of all.

While the theme was science, the evening was mostly about couples just having a good time.

Ask dance instructors Lynn and Bob Kettenburg, who spent the evening cajoling timid couples into strutting their stuff on the dance floor.

Forget chemistry. They're believers in the power of the rhumba.

They should know. The couple met 15 years ago when Bob Kettenburg, 68, decided he wanted to enter dance in competitions with Lynn, 59.

She thought he was crazy. Six months after dancing competitively, romance blossomed.

They've been married for 12 years and won multiple championships in the Silver division.